If mother’s day is stressful due to the plentitude of moms I’ve been graced with, Father’s Day is stressful in the opposite of manners. People worry about the abscence of “Father” in my life. In “people,” I mean politicians and strangers and the Right wing ” Family Values” freaks and some academics, too. Fathers and the lack thereof in children of lesbians lives are of primary importance to all of these demographics. Whether or not we will turn out well-adjusted hangs on this Father/child relationship. In my own case, I know who my Father is and would probably be sending him a greeting today, had he not cut off contact with me a few years back. We had been trying to work out some kind of adult version of a relationship but he got mad and declared the whole thing a farce. From my perspective, I think it had to do with a misplaced sense of entitlement. He felt like I owed him a number things on account of his role in my life- a certain amount of attention and time- and no other parent, none of the women who actually raised me demanded any comparable treatment. It’s sad for me that we don’t speak but I think it is more unfortunate for him. He is far more alone in this world than I am. What is interesting to me, from a socio-logical point of view, is that my brother, conceived thanks to a known Gay donor, is in a very similar situation. He, too, is estranged from his Dads due to a kerfluffle involving a missing Father’s Day card or some other such nonsense. There was a NY Times article discussing this phenonmenon in Donor Dads,

First off- Congratulations to New Hampshire on Gay marriage. It speaks to progress that the same state that had a law on the books keeping gay parents from adopting up practically until the millenium, hasmade so much headway in this regard. Now if only a state that I might want to live in would make the leap…. Anyhow in other joyous news, Obama’s speech in Cairo might just prevent world war- thanks dude- I connect this with the article I mentioned earlier in this blog about the value of symbolic change. I think this really proves that true- A lot rides on what people say and Obama said some things the muslim world really needed to hear. Good on him. And also….I don’t watch TV. I own a TV, it was given to me by my bikini waxer, with whom I have an unordinarily close relationship, after I told her my ex roomate had taken the one we were sharing, along with a bazillion other items on which I relied. Hearing me indulge in self-pity, she promptly called her son who she was sure had an extra TV and then had me follow her to her home where she gifted it to me, along with a lucky bamboo. But there it sits not yet plugged in. Tonight I asked the boyfriend of my most recently acquired housemate what all I needed to make it work and he started in about gender changers and how both of what I had were male so i need a set of females to make it work- craziness. The next time I have some free time I’m going to spend it investigating heteronormativity in Tech speak- for real. But I digress, even without TV I manage through the wonders of the internet to keep up on the “really important ” things that are televised- like Bruno teabagging Eminem at the MTV movie awards. I watched it on Youtube and was very pleased. It seemd like the perfect comeuppance for someone who has profitted so much from mainstream homophobia. When I read that it was planned, my happiness was unquashed. Perhaps this shows a growing understanding on Em’s part. If not, if it’s just the usual, a reinteration of the idea that it’s really upsetting nee insulting to have another men’s genetalia in your face, then at least there was some nuts in face regardless. I’d also like to take this moment to express my excitement for the upcoming Bruno movie, which I hope will do for Gays what Borat did for the Jews. Maybe without the creepy goyim repeating the what’s the best thing to kill a Jew joke and laughing ominously part. Nonetheless, I am happy a Habonim Alum is tackling the issues closest to my heart. I have to say, my youth movement has done a really great job of producing only cool and funny celebrities ( see Sacha Baron Cohen, Seth Rogen,Shuli Egar) see thats what Socialist Zionist summer camp will do to you- make you funny…..

In the course of writing the book proposal for my upcoming memoir- “Moms and Bombs”, I have had a chance to reflect on my life in a more “big picture” way than the day-to-day navel gazing I do generally affords. I’d say the major conclusion I’ve reached is that not only did I have gay parents, I had great gay parents. I am so thankful that I have been raised by such extraordinary women. I made it out to RainbowVision, the gay retirement community out here in Santa Fe, at long last. I had tried to entice them towards me with promises of a Tennesee Williams playreading series but was, surprisingly I thought, ignored. I had to be invited over informally instead, alas. But there I was, in the apartment of an older lesbian named Judith, being lectured about my memoir, though she hadn’t heard it fully explained. I’d just given her the tag line ” Can the daughter of a quartet of lesbians find love with an Israeli combat soldier?” ” I hope you aren’t going to write some post-feminist piece of crap”, she said in response. I assured her that I was wallowing in Feminism, happily entrenched. ” Because I don’t need some book that doesn’t acknowledge the struggle that made your life possible. I mean you are standing on the shoulders of some strong women…and I don’t think you can leave out the politics that made your life happen…” As her words pour over me, I feel both very at home, and confused, as to how thousand of miles away from home and mothers, i’ve been able to manifest something so familiar. How many countless women have felt the need to endow me with what they consider important. I have been made a vessel for their wisdom. I am a community investment and while occasionally it feels like a lot of old ladies telling me what to do, in my more mature moments, I am grateful that they care about me, that they are walking with me on my path, guiding my steps. Even women I’ve just met. ” I am definitely planning to honor the women who raised me,” I promise her. ” I don’t think theres any way I could describe my life, accurately, without including the political aspect of my being. You know, if the personal is political, doubly so for me, right?” I am happy to see that she has all the same books on her shelves as my Moms- “Nice Jewish Girls: a lesbian anthology” makes me feel especially at home. I am thankful that, in this day and age, I have a community no matter where I go- another gift from my mothers. Thanks Moms!!!!